1 Compiling and installing LyX
2 ============================
4 Quick compilation guide
5 -----------------------
7 These four steps will compile, test and install LyX:
9 0) Linux users beware: You need qt4 and qt4-devel packages
10 of the same version to compile LyX.
13 configures LyX according to your system.
15 --with-qt4-dir=<path-to-your-qt4-installation>
16 if the environment variable QTDIR is not set (for example,
17 '--with-qt4-dir=/usr/share/qt4/'). Alternatively, you could
18 install pkgconfig (the name might vary depending on your
20 See Note below if ./configure script is not present.
26 runs the program so you can check it out.
29 will install it. You can use "make install-strip" instead
30 if you want a smaller binary.
33 Note for Subversion (SVN) checkouts
34 -----------------------------
36 If you have checked this out from Subversion, you need to have:
40 Then type "./autogen.sh" to build the needed configuration
41 files and proceed as stated below.
43 You will also probably need GNU m4 (perhaps installed as gm4).
49 First of all, you will also need a recent C++ compiler, where recent
50 means that the compilers are close to C++ standard conforming (gcc 4.x).
52 LyX 1.6.x makes great use of C++ Standard Template Library (STL).
53 This means that gcc users will have to install the relevant libstdc++
54 library to be able to compile this version of LyX.
56 LyX has been tested with all Qt versions since Qt 4.2.2. For compilation
57 you need to compile against at least Qt 4.2.2. The only special point to
58 make is that you must ensure that both LyX and the Qt libraries are
59 compiled with the same C++ compiler.
61 Note that if Qt is using Xft2/fontconfig, you may need to install the
62 latex-xft-fonts package (at ftp://ftp.lyx.org/pub/lyx/contrib/) to get
63 maths symbols displayed properly. To find out, type:
65 ldd `which lyx` | grep fontconfig
67 at the console. Most recent distributions are known to use fontconfig.
69 If, however, your version of Qt does not use fontconfig, then TeX
70 fonts should be added to the font path. 'man xset' is your friend.
72 * Other things to note
74 If you make modifications to files in src/ (for example by applying a
75 patch), you will need to have the GNU gettext package installed, due
76 to some dependencies in the makefiles. You can get the latest version
78 ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gettext/
80 To use the thesaurus, you will need to install libAikSaurus, available
82 http://aiksaurus.sourceforge.net/
84 The two following programs should be available at configuration time:
86 o LaTeX2e should be correctly setup for the user you are logged in
87 as. Otherwise, LyX will not be able to run a number of tests. Note
88 that users can run these tests manually with Tools>Reconfigure.
90 o Python 2.3 or newer installed to be able to import older LyX files
91 with the lyx2lyx script (this script is called automatically when
98 LyX can be configured using GNU autoconf utility which attempts to guess
99 the configuration needed to suit your system. The standard way to use it
100 is described in the file INSTALL.autoconf. In most cases you will be able
101 to create the Makefile by typing
105 For more complicated cases, LyX configure takes the following specific
108 o --enable-build-type=[rel(ease), dev(elopment), pre(release)]
109 allows to tweak the compiled code. The following table describes
110 the settings in terms of various options that are described later
112 release prerelease development
113 optimization -O2 -O2 -O
120 The default are as follows in terms of version number
121 release: stable release (1.x.y)
122 prerelease: version number contains alpha, beta, rc or pre.
123 development: version number contains svn.
125 o --with-extra-lib=DIRECTORY that specifies the path where LyX will
126 find extra libraries (qt4) it needs. Defaults to NONE
127 (i.e. search in standard places). You can specify several
128 directories, separated by colons.
130 o --with-extra-inc=DIRECTORY that gives the place where LyX will find
131 extra headers. Defaults to NONE (i.e. search in standard places).
132 You can specify several directories, separated by colons.
134 o --with-extra-prefix[=DIRECTORY] that is equivalent to
135 --with-extra-lib=DIRECTORY/lib --with-extra-inc=DIRECTORY/include
136 If DIRECTORY is not specified, the current prefix is used.
138 o --with-version-suffix[=SUFFIX] will install LyX as lyxSUFFIX. The
139 LyX data directory will be something like <whatever>/lyxSUFFIX/.
140 Additionally your user configuration files will be found in e.g.
141 $HOME/.lyxSUFFIX. The default for SUFFIX is "-<currentversion>",
144 You can use this feature to install more than one version of LyX
145 on the same system. You can optionally specify a "version" of your
146 own, by doing something like :
147 ./configure --with-version-suffix=-latestsvn
149 Note that the standard configure options --program-prefix,
150 --program-suffix and the others will not affect the shared LyX
151 directory etc. so it is recommended that you use --with-version-suffix
152 (or --prefix) instead.
154 There are also flags to control the internationalization support in
157 o --disable-nls suppresses all internationalization support,
158 yielding a somewhat smaller code.
160 o --with-included-gettext forces the use of the included GNU gettext
161 library, although you might have another one installed.
163 o --with-catgets allows to use the catget() functions which can
164 exist on your system. This can cause problems, though. Use with
167 o You can also set the environment variable LINGUAS to a list of
168 language in case you do not want to install all the translation
169 files. For example, if you are only interested in German and
170 Finnish, you can type (with sh or bash)
171 export LINGUAS='de fi'
172 before running configure.
174 Moreover, the following generic configure flags may be useful:
176 o --prefix=DIRECTORY specifies the root directory to use for
177 installation. [defaults to /usr/local]
179 o --datadir=DIRECTORY gives the directory where all extra LyX
180 files (documentation, templates and layout definitions)
182 [defaults to ${prefix}/share/lyx${program_suffix}]
184 o --bindir=DIRECTORY gives the directory where the lyx binary
185 will be installed. [defaults to ${prefix}/bin]
187 o --mandir=DIRECTORY gives the directory where the man pages will go.
188 [defaults to ${prefix}/man]
190 o --enable-maintainer-mode enables some code that automatically
191 rebuilds the configure script, makefiles templates and other useful
192 files when needed. This is off by default on releases, to avoid
195 Note that the --with-extra-* commands are not really robust when it
196 comes to use of relative paths. If you really want to use a relative path
197 here, you can prepend it with "`pwd`/".
199 If you do not like the default compile flags used (-g -O2 on gcc), you can
200 set CXXFLAGS variable to other values as follows:
202 o CXXFLAGS='-O2' (sh, bash)
203 o setenv CXXFLAGS '-O2' (csh, tcsh)
205 Similarly, if you want to force the use of some specific compiler, you can
206 give a value to the CXX variable.
208 If you encounter problems, please read the section 'Problems' at the end of
211 The following options allow to tweak more precisely the generated code:
213 o --enable-profiling instruments the code for use with the gprof
214 profiler. The result are only meaningful in conjunction with
215 --enable-build-type=release.
217 o --enable-optimization=VALUE enables you to set optimization to a
218 higher level as the default (-O), for example --enable-optimization=-O3.
220 o --disable-optimization - you can use this to disable compiler
221 optimization of LyX. The compile may be much quicker with some
222 compilers, but LyX will run more slowly.
224 o --enable-debug will add debug information to your binary. This
225 requires a lot more disk space, but is a must if you want to try to
226 debug problems in LyX. The default is to have debug information
227 for development versions and prereleases only.
229 o --enable-warnings that make the compiler output more warnings during
230 the compilation of LyX. Opposite is --disable-warnings. By default,
231 this flag is on for development versions only.
233 o --enable-assertions that make the compiler generate run-time
234 code which checks that some variables have sane values. Opposite
235 is --disable-assertions. By default, this flag is on for
236 development versions only.
238 o --enable-stdlib-debug adds some debug code in the standard
239 library; this slows down the code, but has been helpful in the
240 past to find bugs. By default, this flag is on for development
243 o --enable-concept-checks adds some compile-time checks. There is no
244 run-time penalty. By default, this flag is on for development
247 o --without-latex-config that disables the automatic detection of your
248 latex configuration. This detection is automatically disabled if
249 latex cannot be found. If you find that you have to use this
250 flag, please report it as a bug.
252 o --with-frontend=FRONTEND that allows to specify which frontend you
253 want to use. The default value is qt4, which is the only available
256 o --enable-monolithic-build[=boost,client,insets,mathed,core,tex2lyx,frontend-qt4]
257 that enables monolithic build of the given parts of the source
258 code. This should reduce the compilation time provided you have
259 enough memory (>500MB).
262 Compiling and installing LyX
263 ----------------------------
265 Once you've got the Makefile created, you just have to type:
272 Since the binaries with debug information tend to be huge (although
273 this does not affect the run-time memory footprint), you might want
274 to strip the lyx binary. In this case replace "make install" with
278 BTW: in the images subdirectory there is also a small icon "lyx.png",
279 that can be used to display lyx-documents in filemanagers.
281 If configure fails for some strange reason
282 ------------------------------------------
284 Even when configure fails, it creates a Makefile. You always can check
285 the contents of this file, modify it and run 'make'.
287 Compiling For Multiple Architectures
288 ------------------------------------
290 You can compile LyX for more than one kind of computer at the same
291 time, by placing the object files for each architecture in their own
292 directory. To do this, you must use a version of `make' that supports
293 the `VPATH' variable, such as GNU `make'. `cd' to the directory where
294 you want the object files and executables to go and run the
295 `configure' script. `configure' automatically checks for the source
296 code in the directory that `configure' is in and in `..'.
298 If you have to use a `make' that does not supports the `VPATH'
299 variable, you have to compile LyX for one architecture at a time in
300 the source code directory. After you have installed LyX for one
301 architecture, use `make distclean' before reconfiguring for another
307 This section provides several hints that have been submitted by LyX
308 team member or users to help compiling on some particular
309 architectures. If you find that some of this hints are wrong, please
312 o On SUN Sparc Solaris, you need gnumake. The LyX makefiles do not
313 work with Solaris make.
315 The Solaris 8 ar seg-faults trying to build the insets library. You
316 will need to use the ar from the GNU binutils for this subdirectory.
317 There is no problem with the Solaris 9 and 10 ar.
319 Qt4 uses the Xrender X11 extension for antialiased fonts. This
320 extension was added to Xsun starting from the Solaris 10 8/07
321 release, but it is not activated by default. To activate it, you
322 must issue (as root) the following command:
323 svccfg -s svc:/application/x11/x11-server setprop options/server_args=+xrender
324 and then restart the X server.
326 There is a problem with the fontconfig library shipped with
327 Solaris 10 8/07 causing a seg-fault when it is used by Qt4.
328 Until this is fixed, a workaround is replacing the shared library
329 /usr/lib/libfontconfig.so.1 with a copy from a previous release or
330 installing a new version of fontconfig from http://www.sunfreeware.com/
332 On Solaris, the default fontconfig configuration gives preference
333 to bitmap fonts at (not so small) sizes. As bitmapped fonts are not
334 antialiased, you may prefer changing this configuration. This may be
335 done by adding the following stanza
337 <match target="pattern">
338 <edit name="prefer_bitmap">
343 to either ~/.fonts.conf (for a per-user change) or /etc/fonts/local.conf
344 (for a global system change). The stanza should be added between the
345 <fontconfig> and </fontconfig> tags. If neither ~/.fonts.conf nor
346 /etc/fonts/local.conf exist, you can create them with the following
349 <?xml version="1.0"?>
350 <!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM "fonts.dtd">
352 <match target="pattern">
353 <edit name="prefer_bitmap">